'The word ‘corporate’ has to do with the body, for the Latin word ‘corpus’ means ‘body.’ This is why we refer to the statue of the crucified Christ as the ‘corpus.’ When our worship book names a service ‘corporate confession and forgiveness,’ it makes the point that what is happening is the bringing of the parts of the body back into healthy relation.'
Grace
and peace to you, sisters and brothers, from God our Father and our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ.
Two weeks ago, I asked everyone to look at the service of individual confession and forgiveness found in our worship book. There is another service of forgiveness in our worship book. I’m not going to ask you to look at it, but you can if you like. It’s on page 193 in the front of the book. While the purpose of the rite of individual confession and forgiveness is to reconcile the penitent to God, the liturgy of ‘Corporate Confession and Forgiveness’ is meant to reconcile members of the community to each other. The occasions for such a service vary: it could be used as a way to deepen repentance and the power of absolution as individuals confess their sins in a group setting; it could be a means of effecting the reconciliation of families or of factions within the congregation; or it could be a vehicle for acknowledgement of sharing in corporate wrongs and corporate guilt.
When we consider a parable, perhaps the Good Samaritan or the unforgiving servant or the parable of the sheep and the goats, we may, despite our best efforts to deflect, recognize ourselves and our own flaws in the parable. The stories become mirrors in which we are surprised to see ourselves.
So
the service of corporate confession and forgiveness can never be used to
manipulate people into recognizing their own wrongdoing. One must always
recognize one’s own wrongdoing on one’s own. Then one can be reconciled with
God and with others.
But
the fact remains that we don’t usually think of reconciliation with others. We
don’t feel the need. The reason is that we don’t understand what the Church is.
We think of the Church as a business which dispenses religious products. Or we
think of the Church as the property of the members, a voluntary organization of
like-minded individuals which hires a pastor and staff to do things for them.
Maybe
that’s not the way you view church. But this is how many people understand
church, whether or not they say it that way. It’s certainly not the way the New
Testament understands church. The Church is so much more than a purveyor of
religious goods and services or a volunteer organization.
At
some time in the past, this congregation, St Stephen, began referring to itself
as a ‘faith family.’ This is Scriptural. If, in baptism, we are made brothers
and sisters of Jesus Christ, then anyone who is baptized is our brother or
sister in faith as well. St Paul, in his letters, uses the word
‘brothers,’ and to the Galatians, he
writes, ‘So, brethren, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, and
especially to those who are of the household of faith.’ Those who live in a
household are one family, and therefore ‘household of faith’ can also be
translated ‘family of faith.’
But
there is a metaphor for the church that is even more intimate, even closer,
than a family. It is that of the body. The Church is called the body of Christ.
‘Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.’ The word
‘corporate’ has to do with the body, for the Latin word ‘corpus’ means ‘body.’
This is why we refer to the statue of the crucified Christ as the ‘corpus.’
When our worship book names a service ‘corporate confession and forgiveness,’
it makes the point that what is happening is the bringing of the parts of the
body back into healthy relation.
When
Christians do not have an understanding of the church as a ‘body,’ when they do
not consider themselves as fundamentally joined to each other, what happens? We
consider some people as more important than others. Some may even consider
themselves as ‘dispensable.’ Congregations become enamored with their own ideas
of success rather than addressing issues of community health or need. Pastors
and members of their congregations become intractably at odds and harden in
their attitudes toward one another. It is much easier to get rid of a pastor or
members of a congregation who are at odds with you rather than to come to
compromise or agreement. It is much easier to leave a congregation without
saying a word rather than speaking openly and honestly to our brothers and
sisters.
Now,
that is not to say that there is not a time when one must leave a congregation
for another, or even one church body for another. There are times when a pastor
and a congregation must part ways, for the sake of both the pastor and the
congregation. But the concept of the ‘body’ means that such decisions are not
made suddenly, lightly, frivolously, or without openness, honesty, truth and
love. Thankfully, I can report that I experience honesty, truth and love in
this congregation, and I hope that I also model this for you. But in my
previous congregation, and in conversation with ordained and lay brothers and
sisters in other places, I can tell you that the experience of alienation in
the body of Christ is real, it is widespread, and it is painful, for individuals
and for their families. I am close friends with one pastor whose children have
all left the church behind, and when their parents ask why, they say, ‘Why
would we want to associate with the kind of people who said that they worshiped
God but who lied about Dad and hurt our family so badly?
Our
Lord Jesus wants his disciples to live in a different way. They are to meet
occasions of disagreement in the community in a spirit not of hatred, but of
love. Even great sin can be overcome for the sake of the truth that we are
intimately joined together in the body of Christ. The process that Jesus
outlines in our Gospel reading today is often mistaken for the process of
excommunication. Or it is read in a legalistic fashion, to complain about how
someone went about confronting someone else. But Jesus’ words are a guide to
reconciliation, not excommunication. The concern is not to shame the offender,
but to protect and preserve the offender’s good name and status within the
community. The offender’s wrongdoing is not unnecessarily dragged out into the
open to damage the offender, but it is only publicly revealed for the health of
the community. Finally, even excommunication is for the sake of the community
and for reconciliation. Truth is told for the sake of bringing together again
that which should be inseparable.
What
would it mean for the congregations of the Church to live together in this way?
A warm and fuzzy response would be that everything would be daisies and
sunshine. But frankly, it would be both less comfortable and more comfortable.
Less comfortable because honesty always is uncomfortable to the sinful self,
the old Adam or Eve whose first response to criticism is to say, ‘Who, me?’ But
more comfortable because any words spoken would be spoken truthfully and with
love. It would mean far fewer pastors leaving the ministry, and far fewer lay
people fleeing from churches in which they experience the antagonism present in
their workplaces and schools where they should feel safe amidst God’s people.
Well,
there’s no community that is perfect, no individual who is without sin. But if we
believe that Jesus’ words are more than a legal process but instead a call to
live a life oriented towards reconciliation; if the Church understands itself
to be a body whose members are meant to live in healthy relation, then we may
anticipate in our imperfect life together the peace and unity known in heaven
among the saints. This is the unity for which Christ died, that we might be
made one body with him and with each other through the cross. Amen
The Rev. Maurice Frontz
St Stephen Lutheran Church
Sept. 10, 2023
